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Money became infamous in the U.S. civil rights movement after Emmett Till, a 14-year-old native of Chicago, visited his uncle Moses Wright there in August 1955. Till reportedly made suggestive remarks or whistled at (accounts differ) Carolyn Bryant, a white woman working alone at Bryant's Grocery, a store she owned with husband Roy Bryant. As a result, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, later abducted, tortured and murdered Till. The pair were arrested and tried for the murder, but were speedily acquitted by the all-white jury. They confessed to the killing in an interview with William Bradford Huie in the January, 1956 issue of Look magazine.

Till's mother, Mamie Till Bradley, insisted on an open casket funeral and allowed news photographs of the body to be published, raising nationwide awareness of lynching. Many Southern historians suggest that the Emmett Till murder helped spark the civil rights movement of the 1960s, by drawing national attention to injustice.

A bridge crossing the Tallahatchie River at Money was the focus of Bobbie Gentry's 1967 hit song "Ode to Billie Joe". That bridge collapsed in June 1972[2] and has since been replaced. The November 10, 1967 issue of Life contained a photo of Gentry crossing the original bridge.